I was reading fellow Warlock blogger Fulguralis when I got to thinking that there might be some other warlocks out there (for some ungodly reason) who happen to check out my blog for warlock info. I know the newbie guide still gets a bunch of hits so SOME people are reading me for real info.

Yes crazy I know.

Anyway, I thought I would go boss by boss and give some helpful tips to the warlocks out there who might be having issues. Again, there is the usual disclaimer that I am by NO MEANS a fantastic raider, nor do I claim that I know everything there is to know about aff locks or the Firelands fights, HOWEVER, the tips I am going to give might just give you ideas of your own to help down that pesky boss that is causing problems.

Shannox

This boss is fairly straightforward. Kill Rageface, bring Riplimb to around 30% then burn the boss to just around 35%, kill Riplimb then kill the boss. Having 3 targets makes this a FUN fight for Affliction. We shine when there are 2 main targets (Yes I know there are 3 but you should be able to keep your dots up on 2 of the 3 easily.) Since Rageface doesn’t have an aggro table you can just unleash hell right off the bat. Pre-pot and charge up your Haunt. I then pop Demon Soul and put all of my dots up on him. Then I Soul Swap and load up Riplimb with a full set. From then on out I focus on Rageface and add dots back up on Riplimb each time my Soul Swap is off cooldown. Watch for traps and use Drain Life as needed during the unavoidable damage if your healers are struggling. Depending on when your raid team blows lust is when you will want to pop your Doomguard. Our RL likes to wait until the last min to blow lust (which drives me nuts) so I tend to pop my Doomguard when Riplimb is almost dead. Make sure you pop your Demon Soul each time it is off cooldown. I save my potion for the under 25%. If the fight lasts long enough to try to pop your Demon Soul for when you Drain Soul.

Beth’tilac

Depending on your raid make up you might be on adds or sent up top. Personally I think Affliction is IDEAL for going up top. We lack the burst to kill the adds fast enough BUT we have lots of DoTs to keep on the boss that continue to damage her while we have to jump down. On the first web phase I pop my Demon Soul. On the second web phase I pop my potion. On the third web phase I pop my Demon Soul (it should be off cooldown). Before I jump down I make sure that ALL of my DoTs are refreshed so that damage continues on Beth while I am stuck on the ground. I can usually get her under 80% by the time she drops. During the ground phase rock out with everything you’ve got. Pop your Demon Soul once it comes off cooldown (unless she is close to 25% then save it for then), pop your Doomguard when lust is blown. Drain Life as needed during the massive AoE damage to help the healers.

Rhyolith

This fight is all about staying out of the bad and add control. Avoid the fire. Seed of corruption the little adds (soul burn as it is off cooldown) and full out rotation on the big adds. I generally don’t mess with the legs in our raid unless the driver specifically calls for everyone to switch to help with a turn. Our DoTs on the legs *may* cause problems if they have to switch quickly, so I just play it safe. Where we shine in this fight is our self healing. There is a TON of damage so any time you can Drain Life helps out the healers. With your Soul Burn: Seed putting Corruption up on multiple targets you will end up with a nice chunk o’ healing happening. Once his armor shatters then you get to go to town. Pop your Doomguard, Demon Soul and potion and just rock out.

Alysrazor

Ah the firebird. I actually enjoy this fight. I know, I know. I am a sick, sick person. I think the main reason I like this fight is we are actually useful! Now I don’t normally get to fly because we have an amazing mage (go go Zuggie!) who switches to fire for this fight. When we don’t have Zug (it does happen from time to time) THEN I get to fly. The hardest part about flying is dealing with the change to your cast times. You have near instant shadow bolts (assuming you keep your buff up and high) and it kind of throws your rhythm so it takes a few to get used to it. Dodge the bad clouds and fly through the rings. Drain Life as needed to spare your healers. 99% of the time I am on the ground. When we two heal (almost always) I am the one who gets the extra feather in the first round. Getting at least one feather as soon as you can is VERY IMPORTANT! Don’t take one over your tanks or healers though. On the rare times that we three heal this fight I don’t get my feathers until the 2nd pass. Depending on your raid make up you may or may not be interrupting. Make sure that your Felpuppy’s interrupt is not set to auto. Either macro it or key bind it (or if you are like me, click it) and watch for your turn on the interrupts. We have a 24 second cool down on our interrupt. You CANNOT get them all. At the most I can get off one interrupt per add. Make sure you use the cooldown correctly. I still screw this up from time to time. My partner will miss an interrupt and I quickly get it just to be without one when my turn comes. So you need to make sure that you are communicating with whomever you are paired up with. DoT up the Hatchlings and pew pew on them when you don’t have a flame druid to kill. When the boss swoops down, DoT her up too. I save my Demon Soul for the burn phase in phase 3. We usually lust in this phase, but in the 2nd round of it. Pop your Doomguard during lust. I pop my potion in the burn phase where we don’t have lust. This fight is more about staying alive and taking care of your job vs actually killing the boss. So unless you are flying, just make sure you do what you have been assigned.

Baleroc

Crystal tanking time! Sometimes you can get lucky and be counted out of the crystal rotation, other times you have to suck it up and use what you can to soak up more stacks. When we three heal this fight I can get up to 15 or so stacks, when we two heal I have to bow out at 12. Use your Shadow Ward every time it is off cooldown (when you are on the crystal), Shadowburn: Healthstone if you need help with your life getting low and of course Drain Life as needed. We have a Frost DK soak up most of the first crystal and he uses the Tol Barad trinket. Personally I can’t switch out my trinkets because it messes with my hit cap. If you can swing using the TB trinket then by all means rock out that sucker. I pop the Doomguard with lust and hit Demon Soul on cooldown. You can pre-pot on this fight and should. I don’t use my teleport during this fight because of the randomness of the crystal placement, but you could easily reposition it once a crystal spawns.

Majordomo Staghelm

This fight is PERFECT for your teleporter. Before we pull the boss I make sure I place my teleport and reposition it each time we transition to a cat phase. Pop your Doomguard during lust. I use my Demon Soul on cooldown. During the scorpion phase I pop my Shadowflame every time it is up along with my Death Coil. I use Drain Life towards the end of each transition and whenever I need to as well. I try to only Life Tap during the cat phases if possible. There isn’t much damage going out during that phase that isn’t avoidable so I don’t feel like I am taxing my healers. While the kitties that spawn during the cat phase should be taken care of by the melee, you should put at least your two instants on them then switch back to Domo. They don’t have enough health to be worrying too much about them. During the fire spore cat phase use Drain Life as much as you need to help counter the damage coming in from soaking. We try to switch at 4 stacks.

Ragnaros

Ahh Rag, it is NOT too soon! Now you might think that with our lack of burst that we might not want to be Aff for this fight. Well you are WRONG! During the transitions with the Sons of Flame you are AWESOME for helping to slow the far adds. I get placed with the furthest adds. We call them 7 & 8. I Soul Swap DoTs from Rag and pop them onto #7 (the closer of the two) and then pop up my instants on #8. Then I spam the shit out of Fel Fire between the two of them. By the time either of them are close to the hammer they have very little health and are easily finished off. The key to being a non burst spec in the transition is your placement. Depending on where the hammer falls you should be on the far side of it. When it falls in the middle it is a crapshoot and you need to pick a side. I like to place my teleporter on the opposite of the room from where I stand and pew pew. This way when I have to move there if the hammer falls near me then I can get there faster. You *could* be the one picked to trigger the fire traps, but it is less than ideal. You will need to make sure you set your portal each time. I am lucky in our raid that we have a mage and he pops the traps. It CAN be done, but you don’t want the job. I pop my Demon Soul on cooldown and pre-pot. We haven’t used lust yet on this fight because we have only gotten to phase 3 once. I am assuming we will pop lust then and that is where I will use my Doomguard. From what I’ve heard with the meteors your instant DoTs should work to pop them back, I will probably still use Fel Fire though. The good news about this fight is you only have to get him to 10% so that is positive!

With the GINORMOUS nerfs put into play today (25% seriously?!?!) these fights shouldn’t continue to be super difficult for your raid group. Hopefully these tips will help you out and if you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments section and I will do my best to help you answer them.

The past few weeks have been pretty stressful. Now that I’ve told my boss I can now announce to the world at large that I am leaving California and moving to Ohio.

Yes I know I am INSANE to leave San Diego and move to Columbus, but take your complaints to Slice. He refused to leave Ohio.

So telling the boss didn’t go well, but I knew it wouldn’t. Necessary evil as Sorak puts it. I can only hope that the next 3 weeks aren’t like living in hell. We’ll see I guess.

In other news, I have been cheating on WoW a bit. About 2 weeks (or was it 3) Slice started playing Age of Conan for something different one night. I decided to download it and play it with him for a little bit (it is Free to Play) and I uh kind of got hooked. I spent most of Labor Day weekend leveling my demonologist (it was the only dps caster available as F2P) and I hit 25 at the end of the weekend. I have since hit 31 with her, 20 with a barbarian (mixture of a fury warrior/rogue), 9 with a bear shaman (melee healer) and 11 with a ranger (hunter). I uh also kind of subbed for 3 months. It was the same price as WoW so I just cancelled my 2nd account (my brother’s) and subbed to AoC. While F2P isn’t bad having the full game (and OMG the inventory) is definitely MUCH better.

Right now I’m really enjoying the demonologist and barbarian the most. Everyone starts in the same zone and doesn’t leave it until around level 20-22 so I’ve been pushing to get my barbarian through it so I can see what her homeland is like. She only has a handful of quests left before she can leave Tortage and I am getting antsy over not being finished yet. My current peeve is with one of the dungeons and how the mobs respawn almost as fast as you kill them thus overwhelming you. Not fun.

All in all it has been a nice little diversion. I’m not treating it like a normal MMO though. It reminds me so much of Dragon Age and I have ended up treating the game like a single player with a chat feature. As long as I don’t venture into global chat I’m good. The new player help channel is actually pretty nice. Don’t get me wrong, the trolls are there, but they are usually just regulars who are just having fun with each other. The rest of NPH is actually HELPING the new players. Shocking I know! :D

So that is what I’ve been doing instead of packing my apartment. Which I really cannot avoid anymore. The moving company is coming to pick up my crap on Tuesday. I think Andrew might be picking up my furniture this weekend. I think I have a total of 6 boxes packed. Yes I know I am WAY BEHIND! Must stop playing on the computer!

In WoW news we still haven’t downed Rag. Not for lack of trying. We’ve been hit with an attendance issue. Last week we had 3 people out (2 healers and 1 tank) this week we are out our MT (Arv chose to go on vacation). Luckily Zarm is an awesome tank and Zari was willing to come heal us on his druid. We had some snags on Balroc & Alysrazor. We got Balroc down after some role changes but were unable to get Alysrazor down. Zari couldn’t dodge tornadoes and Zin kept dying to the hatchlings. I think it was more a mixture of standing in the fire and not feeding the birds fast enough that killed him. He has as bad habit of keeping the hatchling in one place and not eating a worm until told repeatedly to do so. His damage on the hatching wasn’t bad, but that doesn’t matter if he doesn’t live. In Zari’s case he hadn’t ever seen the fight. For most people it takes a bit to learn how to dodge the tornadoes. I’m hoping we’ll have a post from here where he describes the horror of the Alysrazor fight.

I’m really hoping we can get Rag down tonight. I know there are several people who will be upset if we don’t down him before the nerfs. As I said before, it isn’t a matter of ability, it has just been bad RL RNG. Maybe I should whip out the alcohol tonight. Tipsy Lyssi is a FUN time I tell ya. I mean, something has to happen to the stuff I have in my apartment before I move. Why not right?

Onward!

I completely missed my 1 year anniversary last year. I think I remembered like 2 weeks after it happened. I had originally wanted to do a whole stats thingy, but frankly I am lazy and trying to type this between my boss being in the office.

I did want to say thank you to all of my lovely readers that have stuck with me through the dry times. You all are wonderful and I am grateful for each and every one of you!

Find stuff!

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